Mages, ten-man raiding, and other things that are awesome.

You can expect a few smaller “slice of life” updates here over the next week or so. I’m going to be out of town on vacation and I don’t want things completely barren while I’m gone, but I also have to pack and run a million errands before we leave (this compounded by the jerk who threw a rock through our front window last Saturday, but don’t get me started about that).

Anyway, I had my first raid with Business Time last night as a holy paladin. We went to Throne of the Four Winds to do heroic Conclave of Wind again since some people had missed it when we got the kill a bit earlier this week. I was a mage for our first kill, but I’d never healed it before!

To say I was nervous would probably be a fair understatement. The only raid I’d healed in recent history was with another guild, and I knew I could always bow out gracefully if it just wasn’t working out. There was no “out” for this raid, I’d put myself forward as a healer and I won’t play the “I’m sorry guys, I’m not that good yet,” card. I was there to win. (By which I mean kill some pixelated wind lords, not “win” somehow at healing. When dragons die, everyone wins!)

It went well. We were able to repeat the kill. I screwed up some times, other people screwed up some times. I had to learn the rhythms of tank damage. I started out on the Nezir platform healing our bear tank and then transitioning to Anshal, but at some point we made a healing switch and I swapped to healing Voss.

Healing your significant other is interesting. In the past it has served us well, but it’s been awhile. I think it’s good because there is 1) an immediate line of communication since we’re sitting right next to each other, as well as 2) almost a decade of knowing/trusting each other. It also comes along with 3) willingness to say anything because it’s your significant other and not your internet friend. So me healing Voss goes something like, “Okay, moving now.”

“Where are you going? Oh my god, ice patch.”

“You can’t be in front of him!”

“I’m not in front of him!”

“You’re in his frost breath!”

“I’m not in his frost breath! Oh my gawwd use a cooldown.”

“I used a cooldown.”

“I used another cooldown.”

“Okay. We’re good. Okay. I have no mana left.”

“…okay.”

This is a screenshot that doesn't actually include Vid at all, but it's still thematic!

At some point we had a misunderstanding about the way Nezir ought to be moved, as each tank was doing it differently, and we actually pulled off our headsets to run around and do a little pantomime of where we each thought the boss should go. One of our other healers remarked that it was kind of hilarious to see the two of us running in circles and wonder what we were talking about (off-vent) and I suppose it would have been. I realized again that healing takes so much coordination with your team mates. Healer chat was going a mile a minute with questions and comparisons and feedback. Let me say it now:

I loved it.

Really, truly. The cooperative aspect of this role appeals to me so much. I had an absolute blast. I did not play perfectly (far from it) and I will need to make some adjustments to my UI with reminders to use CDs and auras so I can track my own buffs. But still. Holy heck, you guys, I healed heroic Conclave of Wind! I don’t usually post any bragging type things, so it’s not that, it’s really just – I was happy with my performance generally although I know many areas I can improve. Conclave of Wind is really a great acid test because it’s three individual groups each ‘on their own.’ There is no secondary healer to back me up; if my tank dies, it’s on me. Particularly at the end things started falling apart a little bit, but we pulled it off.

After this, we didn’t have much time in the raid so we went and killed Cho’gall (normal) and ODS (also normal). I honestly thought that just because we now have two holy paladins, those bracers would drop, but clearly this is a logical fallacy. (I was not, incidentally, intending to claim them for myself or roll on them in any way). That means Sin, our other holy paladin, killed Cho’gall 15 times throughout this tier of content without ever once seeing the bracers drop. Thank goodness they’ll be available for VP in Tier 12, because that kind of loot “luck” is enough to make me reconsider being a holy paladin, after all.

ODS also did not drop the ring I was hoping for. It’s a minor upgrade (I have one 359 and one 353) but every little bit helps! I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do with my VP before we go on vacation. Should I go ahead and buy something off-spec (I can’t afford anything main-spec) since I’m already at the JP cap as well? Otherwise those VP are just going to be wasted, so I may endeavour to get them to 700 so I can snag the Retribution relic, probably. No sense in wasting them. I can already begin to see that gearing a retribution off-spec is going to be dead easy. I picked up two OS pieces last night alone, including a chest from Cho’gall and some bracers from ODS. I don’t anticipate having to play it often, but I like to be ready just in case.

No, this will not become a retribution paladin blog. Ever. It just won’t happen. (Sorry Antigen, it’s not you, it’s me.)

Finally, in my random list of paladin-raiding things that aren’t much related; I’m probably going to drop engineering after 4.2. (I’ll drop it when a viable helm upgrade presents itself, so probably not immediately). I just can’t see it being that strong a profession for a healer without the cogwheel sockets, and the on-use intellect tinker is okay but it’s not constant (as, say, jewelcrafting would provide). I imagine it evens out to approximately the same thing but I had engineering as an “alt-fun thing” and not as a serious raiding thing. I’ll be sad to say good-bye to my roflcopter, and in-character Vid will always be an engineer, but I can’t really stay engineering just for that purpose. I wish they’d introduce another tier of engineering helms. I suppose other professions as well suffer at the second tier – Alchemists may let go of their trinkets, etc. Honestly? I just really like the goofy goggles. They contribute to the paladin feeling of field medic/triage to me.

Comments on: "Now 100% More Holy" (11)

I honestly don’t know if I’d worry too much about giving up Engineering. The stat bonuses from another profession will be exactly the same! Granted, Engineering’s on-use requirement is a slight hindrance, but I say the utility (repair bots, parachute cloak, mailbox) makes up this minor, minor drawback. And if you use the tinker on cooldown it’s the same stat bonus as the other professions.

Also, it’s not like another profession will get you anything else extra that will give you an edge for raiding. You won’t use an Alchemy trinket. Leatherworking, Inscription, Enchanting and Blacksmithing might be better for profit, but I don’t think that’s really your intent? I suppose if you prefer proc-based bonuses over constant ones, you might prefer Tailoring…

It is sad to lose the Engineering goggles and their cogwheels, but the actual stat bonus of the profession is technically equivalent to the other professions, and practically speaking, only a slight, slight step below (if you use the tinker properly). If you were starting from scratch with zero professions, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend Engineering as your #1 choice, but since you already HAVE it I don’t think it’s worth spending hours of effort and thousands of gold to drop it and pick up, say, Inscription, just for the ability to make Fortune Cards when you’re sitting around Dalaran.

Seconded, I’m running Engineering on my raider also, and the synapse springs on the gloves are roughly equivalent to any other profession bonus. If you’re using VuhDo it even has a new option to auto trigger the glove tinker any time it’s off cooldown. :)

The down side is that it’s a large chunk of stats up part of the time, averaging out to be the same as a small continuous amount like JC or Ench might provide. It is a *little* hard to bank on, but I don’t think that the benefit to having the static bonus rather than the proc is worth releveling a different prof if you still enjoy your flying machine! >>

Also I love my belt tinkers. >> I actually have two different belts, one tinkered to drop a cardboard assassin in heroics for pesky tanks who can’t control the adds, and another one tinkered for the plasma shield for sort of a poor man’s defensive cooldown in raids. The cardboard assassin one is theoretically my Ele belt, but I change them in and out depending on where I am for the utility.

Welcome back to healing! In my (completely unbiased opinion) healing is the most awesome, fun job of all :)

I raid with my S/O as well. I’m a disc priest and he’s a feral dps druid. Usually our interaction consists of me nagging him to not stand in fires, which I’m sure he enjoys. Occasionally though, he’ll tank something – like the adds in Nef phase 1 – and that’s when I really appreciate the fact that we’re in the same room. We can communicate a lot without forcing everyone to listen to use over vent. It’s very handy.

Yay! I contend that healing gives a rush like no other role. And those holy pally bracers . . . yea. We had ONE drop over this entire tier. And Cho’gall only just did drop my mastery legs last night for our last tier 11 raid. It’s like these things either never drop at all or do right at the very end when you’re past caring.

I am so proud of you Vid. Now if I could just find a shammy blog where I can biatch err ask about the 10 man healers combination that work and the ones that don’t work. Such as: resto shammy, resto druid and disc priest. I would be so happy.